


Cup of Tea

by hypothetical_otters



Category: Green Wing
Genre: Asexual Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29310597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypothetical_otters/pseuds/hypothetical_otters
Summary: No tea found in this fic.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 1





	Cup of Tea

Boyce is not interested. He has known this from a young age, been told that he’s a late bloomer, and does not mention this lack of interest in sex to anyone else ever. 

He can fake an interest, make teenage girlfriends and university boyfriends happy, but it just isn’t real. He just doesn’t want to deal with people telling him he’s wrong, about who he is and how he feels. He has fulfilling relationships. He has a sex life. He wants one of those, but not the other. 

He spends so long pretending that he is interested, he forgets he doesn’t experience sexual attraction to people. At East Hampton, at university, at school, he has a reputation. He makes awful jokes, he has a strange relationship with Dr Statham, and he hides behind this. 

He fucks Kim, and isn’t in a relationship with her. He gets her off, and on occasion she returns the favour. He gets almost nothing out of their arrangement, except his reputation, and he doesn’t really want anything else. 

Boyce wants something other than sex. Kim, just wants sex and he’s happy to provide. What he really wants out of a relationship is what he’s got going on with Alan, except with healthier communication and a conversation about boundaries. But, he’s spent so long pretending that now he doesn’t know how to have that conversation or how to explain himself to anyone. 

Until. 

He is in a pub and for the moment he is alone. It’s not the pub attached to the hospital (reason 2 why he will never leave East Hampton), it’s further away, quieter, and not quite so overwhelmingly heterosexual. Boyce is nursing a pint, and trying to look unobtrusive. It’s not that he’s ashamed to be there, it’s more that for most of his life he’s been told bisexuality does not exist and that not feeling sexual attraction makes him weird. He feels like if anyone does try to talk to him, he will have to explain himself and he will be found lacking. 

Boyce has commandeered a small table and is people watching. He doesn’t quite notice that someone’s heading in his direction until they’re sat opposite him. They introduce themself as Mat, and Boyce loses several hours talking to him. 

The next time he sees Mat, (it’s a date, and he’s not nervous at all. Absolutely not nervous) Mat starts a conversation that has Boyce thinking they’re about to break up before they’ve even started dating. What actually happens is Mat asks Boyce if he’s ever heard of asexuality. He couches the question so much that Boyce wades through an entire furniture store before working out what Mat’s asking. He asks Mat to explain, and Mat obliges with a statement of fact. Asexuality: not experiencing sexual attraction to anyone. Mat tells him that he is asexual, and he’d like to go on a date with Boyce and he just thought Boyce ought to know. 

This conversation lingers. Not because Boyce isn’t as fine with it as he said he was, but because he keeps remembering it. For the next two months the definition of asexuality bounces round his head, approaching at inconvenient times. It takes him a while to understand it, and figure out that it fits him. It takes so long, because it’s bloody difficult figuring out that you don’t feel something, especially something as intangible as attraction. It’s like trying to work out how many jumpers you don’t own. But, he remembers the first time he decided to fake an attraction and that’s the push he needs. The next time Boyce sees Mat he tells him that he thinks he might be asexual. Then, rewords that. He knows he is asexual.

**Author's Note:**

> “Boy George said he’d rather have a cup of tea than sex” Sean Hughes, Never Mind the Buzzcocks s7e4. I haven't watched the episode recently enough to remember the quote absolutely accurately, it's not a quote about asexuality, and I don't like Boy George. so as titles go, it's not great. 
> 
> Green Wing is the property of Channel 4
> 
> At some point I may write a green wing fic with plot.


End file.
